18^9 . 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



517 



restoring it to the land in decayed vegetable mat- 

 ter. It is the artificial method of growing crops 

 and removing them entirely from tlie land, with- 

 out any return, that exhausts or impoverishes. 



— A correspondent of the Cincinnati Times says 

 that the following recipe will preserve garden 

 seeds and all kinds of grain and seeds from the 

 ravages of cut worms, birds, &c. One pound 

 sulphate of iron, one pound aloes. Dissolve in 

 water heated to 90 or 95° and pour over one bushel 

 of grain, and in a similar proportion for a greater 

 or lesser quantity. 



— The Horticulturist says that if a fruit grower 

 has a muclv bed within reach he is fortunate. For 

 all light or loamy lands, the application of a hun- 

 dred or more loads per acre of well-prepared muck, 

 is of the most beneficial character. It should be 

 exposed to the air six months or even a year be- 

 fore it is applied to the soil, and composted mean- 

 while with lime, unleached ashes, or fish guano. 



— Mr. L. B. Arnold gives the Country Gentleman 

 a marked instance of the fact that odors inhaled 

 by dairy cows will affect the milk. In Jnne he 

 lost a calf, the carcase of which was placed where 

 northwest winds carried the stench over his pas- 

 tures. It was soon found that the milk was tainted, 

 and was tainted or pure as the wind changed. The 

 cause being traced and removed the trouble ceased. 

 In another case dead horses in the cow pastures 

 caused serious loss to all the patrons of a cheese 

 factory. 



— Leander Smith, a veterinary surgeon of St. 

 Louis, Mo., expresses the opinion, in the Journal 

 of Agriculture of that city, that glanders cannot 

 possibly be produced in man. He says that when 

 he was a stiident he knew a German chemist to 

 repeatedly inoculate himself with the virus of 

 glanders taken from a horse discharged as incur- 

 able, yet the chemist sufiered no bad effects. He 

 believes that in all cases the sickness and death of 

 men supposed to have been the glanders was 

 caused by some other disease. He believes that 

 glanders are confined to the equine race. 



— A correspondent of the Prairie Farmer says, 

 gather your apples early if you wish to keep them 

 late. Gathered early, they are hard, and it will 

 be sometime — several months — before they will 

 have reached the period of ripening which the ripe 

 apple attains on the tree ; so that to pick early, is 

 to put off the ripening time. For very late keep- 

 ing, gather four weeks before ripe ; if wanted for 

 spring use alone, and n >-t early summer, pick a 

 week later ; if for February and March, a week 

 later still. Pick your fruit ; and from the tree put 

 into the barrel, to be no more touched till used. 

 Handling fruit hastens decay. 



— Mr. N. Voss, of Waukegan, 111., writes to the 

 New York Farmers' Club, that he has succeeded 

 in obviating some of the unpleasantness of a privy 

 by not having any depression below the surface, 

 and placing straw on the ground, which absorbs 



the moisture, and can easily be removed with a 

 fork once in two or three "weeks, with less work 

 than cleaning after a single horse or cow one 

 night. And but very little odor is emitted at any 

 time ; nor is it attended with trouble or expense, 

 especially on a farm. The daily addition of a 

 small quantity of dried muck or soil would be an 

 improvement. 



EXTRACTS AND REPLIES. 



SEEDLING APPLE TREES. — TAP BOOTS OF. — SEEDS 

 OF EVERGREENS. — CULTURE OF HEDGES. 



Will you through your valued journal, tell me 

 how to manage with 400 or 500 little apple trees, 

 growing from seed planted this spring ? Ought I 

 to take them up and keep them in a cellar this 

 winter ? 



When transplanted, shall I cut the tap roots or 

 not? 



When should evergreen seeds (hemlock) be 

 gathered, and when and how planted ? 



Should I not get a better and more even hedge 

 by raising seedlings, than in any other way ? How 

 long ought it to take ? s. b. k. 



Providence, R. I., Sept., 1869. 



Remarks. — Let the apple trees remain until 

 next spring ; but if the soil in which they stand is 

 quite moist, mulch them thoroughly with hay, 

 straw, corn buts or branches of evergreens, or the 

 frost will be likely to throw them partly out of the 

 ground. 



Transplant into nursery rows next spring, or 

 into the places where you wish them permanently 

 to stand. If we were about planting another or- 

 chard, we should take the latter course, and pre- 

 serve the whole length of the tap root, although it 

 is often as long as the tree itself. What is the 

 office of the tap root ? Is it not two-fold, to keep 

 the tree firmly in its place, and to find nutriment, 

 especially in seasons of drought ? Why, then, is 

 it cut off? In order to save time and labor. 



'ihe spruce ripens its seed in the fall, and we 

 suppose the hemlock does also. The evergreen 

 seeds are poor keepers, and should be planted soon 

 after maturity. It is more diflScult to raise ever- 

 greens from seed in our changeable climate, with 

 its extremes of heat and cold, than in England. 

 We would refer you to a work on "Evergreens," 

 by Josiah Hooper, published by 0. Judd & Co., or 

 to Warder's "Hedges and Evergreens," and should 

 be very glad to publish a fuller reply to your in- 

 quiries, which we solicit from some one better 

 posted than ourselves on these subjects. 



"horse-tail." 



Seeing an invitation for more information on the 

 effects of this weed on horses, I venture to give 

 my experience with it. I have seen it in many of ^ 

 the valleys of the principal rivers in New England, 

 and in hundreds of other moist and wet places. 

 My attention was first called to it seventeen years 

 ago, by Mr. D. D. Clark, of Concord, N. H., who 

 lust a fine horse that exfiibited all the symptoms 

 of being poisoned. On making an examination of 

 the hay it was found to contain much of this 



